Chapter 15: The Marvelous Kitchen, Chapter Fifteen: Big Yellow

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Protagonist:

Song Miao

Cheng Zijian handed over the essay, then stood honestly to one side, not daring to sit, head bowed and hands clasped as if meeting his teacher.

The other man was not polite to him either; he casually took up a brush, reading while marking the paper with strokes, finished his critique in a moment, looked up at the water clock, placed the essay on the table before Cheng Zijian, and said: "There is still a quarter-hour before the bell rings. If you are anxious, take it back and read it later."

How could Cheng Zijian wait to go back? He impatiently took it with both hands and began reading the notes on the paper.

It was nothing like what he had imagined; there were few comments on his own writing or structure, but mostly analyses of the viewpoints in the essay.

Which viewpoint could be used, which could not, why it could be used, why it could not, and if it were to be used, from which directions to continue writing.

Cheng Zijian read it carefully once through, and suddenly felt as if enlightened, his mind opening wide.

They were clearly his own viewpoints, but when he wrote them, he had actually hesitated somewhat: first, he did not know how to choose between them; second, he did not know how to go deeper.

With this Zhengyan's guidance, it truly hit the vital point; following it, he thought it through, and the path that had been blocked suddenly opened up.

Even more surprising to him was that these contents were clearly exactly what was in his own mind; he simply had not known why before, finding it hard to refine and express. The other man organized it thus, as if untangling the knotted ball of thread in his mind, and in an instant everything was sorted out clearly.

When he went back to revise it, what came out would be entirely his own.

Teaching methods might have no superiority or inferiority, but there must be suitability or unsuitability.

Although thinking this way was somewhat improper, Cheng Zijian always vaguely felt that this Zhengyan's way of instruction might suit him better than the teachers in the school...

Cheng Zijian felt his heart burning, could not help but step forward a few paces, bowed again, and then asked: "Today I have received much guidance. When I return I will rewrite this essay—great kindness is hard to thank, but I do not know your esteemed surname and great name?"

The man opposite said: "My surname is Han."

He finished speaking, but pointed to the water clock in the corner, and said again: "The bell is about to ring—why aren't you running yet?"

Cheng Zijian looked where he pointed, and indeed there was not even the time of a teacup before the bell would ring.

He was startled; at this moment he no longer cared to think about any name. He hastily performed a salute, said a word of thanks, took the essay that this Zhengyan had thrown to him earlier, along with the one he himself had written that bore that person's notes, and ran off at full speed.

All the way as if flying, by the time Cheng Zijian with great difficulty reached the Waishè Xuezhai and sat down at his own seat, the bell outside began to ring.

His throat was dry and hoarse, as if cut by a knife, and his head was still somewhat dazed. After a long while, hearing that the teacher who had entered had already begun the lesson, he slowly took out his book.

But just as he had taken the book halfway, he suddenly reacted.

Surnamed Han.

Han Zhengyan.

It was as if his head had been snapped by a rubber band; he almost stood up, but with difficulty controlled himself. Flustered, he went back to flip through the Han Zhengyan essay he had just brought back, lowered his head to look, and saw that after the title on the far right was the author's name.

It was clearly the most common Guan Guan Ti style, but this stroke was written differently, the characters more upright and harder, as if possessing their own backbone.

The name had only two characters.

Han Li.

After looking at this name several times, Cheng Zijian finally reacted.

It turned out that he was actually Han Li.

One must know that in these past few years, four people at Taixue were most outstanding. Needless to say, students in the Capital all knew them; even when he was still in Fuzhou, he had heard his teacher mention several names and had privately copied their essays.

These four were Han Li, Kong Fuyang, Dou Yingchang, and Cai Xiu.

Among them, Han Li held the first place.

Han Li, courtesy name Zhengyan.

The two characters Zhengyan were personally chosen for him by the late Confucian master Fu Jiu.

This man was thoroughly versed in the classics, excellent in both poetry and prose, especially his essays which had their own style, greatly different from others. But as famous as his essays was his temper.

Upright and aloof; whenever he saw something displeasing, he would speak out.

He was clearly only a Taixue student, yet precisely because he relied on being only a Taixue student, his presence at court was stronger than many censors—for no other reason than that he could scold too well.

At the end of last year, there were continuous heavy snows, and many vagrants froze to death in the two Jingji regions. He went on a trip, and upon returning wrote an essay. He did not describe how miserable the vagrants were; first he said that Prime Minister Cao's son had raised a fighting cock named Big Yellow.

He praised how divine and handsome that Big Yellow was, how formidable, praising everything from its comb to its feathers to its claws in one go. He also praised how luxurious its dwelling was, how exquisite its food, how many people served it, how many groomed its feathers, how many people peeled vegetable hearts for it—each time only the two most tender leaves.

After praising Prime Minister Cao's fighting cock, he turned his pen and spoke of a certain old woman in Xiangfu County who raised a native dog, also named Big Yellow.

The old woman's husband had died, her children were gone, leaving only a four-year-old granddaughter.

Every day, besides caring for her granddaughter, she also did odd jobs; her remaining time was spent carefully tending over ten chickens. Once she had saved enough eggs, she would go to the street to sell them for money to get by.

The dog's main job was guarding the house, its secondary job was keeping the young mistress company. It went hungry one meal and full the next, looking small and thin, lame in one leg—broken while protecting the young mistress from being crushed by a table—and losing fur and whiskers.

Who would have thought that one day, the chickens and the dog were both stolen in the middle of the night.

The old woman cried to the village head; the village head pleaded to the village elder; finally, the thief was caught from among the north-bound vagrants.

The thief did not steal the chickens to eat, but wanted to raise them wholeheartedly; the dog, however, was already in the pot.

The old woman took the chickens and a pot of dog meat back home. Unfortunately, the hens had been frightened and could no longer lay eggs; in the end she had to sell them as meat chickens at a low price.

The little granddaughter still did not know what had happened; she cried and fussed all day, wanting only Big Yellow.

The old woman looked into the pot with tears.

By the end of the writing, he actually had not half a word of evaluation, only sighing that if Big Yellow had spiritual awareness, in a future life he did not know whether it would be willing to return to its original master as a dog, or be willing to be a chicken of the Cao family.

But how could it have a choice?

The official in charge of famine relief this time was precisely recommended by Prime Minister Cao. That official had just submitted a memorial, saying the vagrants had places to live and food to eat, order was well-established, and they did not harm a single hair of the locals.

As soon as this essay came out, it first circulated among Taixue students. Within a few days, everyone on the streets and alleys knew that in Xiangfu County there was a dog named Big Yellow, and in Prime Minister Cao's house there was a chicken named Big Yellow.

The common people all sighed that the yellow dog was loyal and righteous, then cursed that the yellow chicken had good fortune.

As for the rest of the countless comments, they were all outside the essay, among the people's mouths.

The next day, the essay was placed on the Emperor's desk.

After the court session dispersed that day, the Chui Gong Dian deliberation followed; when the matters were discussed and the session was about to adjourn but had not yet, the Emperor, before the Two Prefectures' senior ministers, suddenly asked Cao Xianggong: "I hear Cao Qing has a young son who likes cockfighting?"

Cao Xianggong had accumulated merit over many years; his position would naturally not be affected because his son kept a chicken, or because he himself had recommended the wrong person.

But from then on, political enemies often used this matter to impeach him.

To demonstrate his innocence, he requested a salary deduction penalty, proactively proposed the demotion of that disciple responsible for famine relief, kept a low profile for a good while, and disciplined his household children even more strictly, fearing they might stir up more trouble.

And this was merely one of Han Li's many curses.